http://www.garmin-250.com/blog/2009/11/i-decided-i-want-to-buy-a-garmin-c340-gps-for-my-car-however-i-found-out-it-is-now-discontinued/ Question and Answers about Garmin GPS Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:43:47 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://www.garmin-250.com/blog/2009/11/i-decided-i-want-to-buy-a-garmin-c340-gps-for-my-car-however-i-found-out-it-is-now-discontinued/comment-page-1/#comment-751 geozop Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:22:37 +0000 http://www.garmin-250.com/blog/2009/11/i-decided-i-want-to-buy-a-garmin-c340-gps-for-my-car-however-i-found-out-it-is-now-discontinued/#comment-751 The warranty sheet will say exactly what the rules on the warranty are. I would be surprised if they stopped the warranty when an item is discontinued, though it's likely, now, that they won't be able to replace your GPS with the same model (if that time comes). Customer support can be an issue, but the employees now already know about that model, so you're good for a while. (That is, new employees will not likely be trained on disco models.) There may be a time where the new maps are not compatible, which is probably the biggest concern. I don't think even customer service will know when new maps will stop working on a specific model, but maybe they can interpolate information based on when previous GPS models stopped working with new maps. Far as I've seen (working at Radio Shack, 3 brand names) new maps are not free. If you have something like a free map update, I know you'll want to save it for as long as possible. I can see problems if your GPS no longer works with new maps, however. The warranty sheet will say exactly what the rules on the warranty are. I would be surprised if they stopped the warranty when an item is discontinued, though it’s likely, now, that they won’t be able to replace your GPS with the same model (if that time comes).
Customer support can be an issue, but the employees now already know about that model, so you’re good for a while. (That is, new employees will not likely be trained on disco models.)
There may be a time where the new maps are not compatible, which is probably the biggest concern. I don’t think even customer service will know when new maps will stop working on a specific model, but maybe they can interpolate information based on when previous GPS models stopped working with new maps.
Far as I’ve seen (working at Radio Shack, 3 brand names) new maps are not free. If you have something like a free map update, I know you’ll want to save it for as long as possible. I can see problems if your GPS no longer works with new maps, however.

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